Gospel Conversion

[Eric B]

So it's true just because you say God showed you so, and a person can only know if God shows them. The scriptures really mean nothing then, because even they must be understood only by this secret illumination.
I'm sorry, but anyone who stakes salvation on such an esoteric revelation is the one who believes a false gospel.

 

[connieman]

Yessir, EricB...you have it exactly right! I hope it has been shown to you, as it must be.

The Holy Spirit of God must give you understanding of the Bible, or it will remain just so much foolishness to you. The corrupted mind of unregenerate men can never discern spiritual truth unless and until they are born again of God.

Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Therefore hath God mercy on some, and some He hardens. This is a mystery to the natural mind, but it is revealed by God the Spirit and His Word. But it can be believed only by those to whom faith is given.

connieman

[ May 21, 2002, 06:25 PM: Message edited by: connieman ]

 

[Eric B]

The Catholics and any other aberrant group can make the same claim. (There's a discussion on Baptists & Other Religions with Catholics on this, and one of them even speaks of some "eternal covenant" that proves his Church is right just as you do to prove your view is right.)
Wow, so many people claiming to have the secret knowledge to understand the Bible, but they all contradict each other. How could I possibly know which one is right?
This is dangerous ground we're treading here. God makes His Word understandable to all, but one may understand what it says or means, and it still be foolishness to him. What it says is discernable. Accepting it as truth is what is "spiritually discerned", and thus impossible for the natural man. (The atheists and other religions don't argue whether the Bible teaches there is a God, and you must believe in Him to be saved. They know it does, but just reject it. The unregenerate Jews understood well what Jesus and Paul meant in some of their teachings, even though they lacked the spiritual discernment to understand it as truth). What you're suggesting is that you can't even understand what it means unless you've received the divine illumination. And if that's true then you have no more claim to truth than anyone else who says that.
"Hardening" wouldn't even be necessary if God was just "leaving people to their sins", so that verse must be describing something else, and anyone can understand this for themselves by reading the context. But if it's only some special revelation that enables one to see some hidden "true" meaning, then anyone can similarly explain away the deity of Christ, the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and every other doctrine, and many in New Age and pluralism are doing exactly that.

Acts 17:10-12 And the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. They, when they arrived, went into the synagogue of the Jews.
And these were more noble than those of Thessalonica, in that they received the Word with all readiness of mind and searched the Scriptures daily to see if those things were so.
Therefore many of them believed, and quite a few of honorable Greek women and men.

[ May 21, 2002, 07:01 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]

 

[Ray Berrian]

There is a teacher of Reformed theology that strongly condemns theology that speaks of belief in Jesus as a requirement for salvation. Probably a lighting bolt hits you at the moment of election into the family of God. His bigoted attitude against 'free will' believers is most evident. He says that the idea of God giving human beings a free will is a man made idea and is to be rejected. I guess his views were not thought out by a man. Who wrote Calvin's Institutes? One is to conclude that God wrote them.

Really!

 

[Ray Berrian]

EricB,

I liked your explaining of the word, 'hardening' of the human heart. Never thought of it in the light of "Resistible Grace."

 

[connieman]

EricB and Dr B...how silly you people are, but it is to be expected, I know:

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned." I Cor 2:14 (see context before)

Everyone could know God, and understand God and His Word, if only they were not sinners, and haters of God. But because they are, it is only by God's Spirit, which believers have received, that men can know God and understand.

"The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God. They are all gone aside, they have all together become filthy (m. corrupt); there is none that doeth good, no, not one." Psalm 14:2-3

No, Dr B, no one was hit by lightning at the time they were elected, for they were not yet born, indeed the world was not yet. Election is in eternity; regeneration, repentance, and believing are in time.

Regards, in the Name of Him who reveals Himself to whomsoever He will, but not to all. (Jn 14:22)

connieman

[ May 22, 2002, 12:54 AM: Message edited by: connieman ]

 

[Eric B]

"None seek after God" has been cited many times, but "seek" in the Hebrew and Greek word translated here means to "frequent" or "follow" ("for pursuit or search"), or "search out", "investigate", "crave", "demand", and ultimately "worship". God giving an offer of salvation to man, and man accepting (of his own will) does not violate this, as that does not constitute things like "craving", "demanding", or even "pursuit", "search" and "investigate" in a sense that man initiates it. Man certainly doesn't on his own worship God (which these senses are really pointing to, for one "craving" Him would worship Him [properly]), and that is the point of the Psalm Paul quoted from. Paul's own context was the sinfulness of all men in general, Jew as well as gentile, not an individual's inability to repent or even understand what the Bible means. (Because the Jews thought only gentiles were "sinners", yet the Psalm is pointing out their sin as well).
So now we're "silly" as well as lost...

 

[connieman]

EricB...it was a bad day when you learned Hebrew and Greek, at least a little of it. Now you use it to confuse the faithful, and attempt to turn the Bible on it's head.

"A little learning is a dangerous thing."

Regards, in the Name of Him who saves the "simple" ones, at least, some of them,

connieman

(my sweetest, most appealing and evangelistic smile)

 

[Eric B]

You're just making remarks, and ones that are unsubstantiated. But of course, you don't have to prove anything, right? (1 Thess.5:21) The Bible means what you say it means. You're the one now acting like the "natural man" --just like all the other religious leaders (including the very Israelites described as "vessels of wrath") who can't admit that their doctrines and interpretations of the Bible are wrong, no matter how much Biblical evidence is provided. You speak lies about others' beliefs (certainly not a fruit of regeneration) to back up your claim that non-Calvinists are lost. No-one here believes in a fairy. No one thinks thry saved themselves. Now, when I get the original meanings of the words from the original languages, that is just trying to confuse people. You're already confused. If you can't even defend your position biblically, then don't come pronouncing people as unregenerate. God doesn't judge according to your word. God does not withhold the meaning of His Word from anyone. Even if your view of election is true, still, the premise is that the non-elect can read and understand what they are rejecting, and that is why they are condemned. Not because they disagree with Connieman.

[ May 22, 2002, 07:42 PM: Message edited by: Eric B ]

 

[Nelson]

Originally posted by connieman: "A little learning is a dangerous thing."

Well, that's a little learning that if you've learned it, your in danger...

 

[connieman]

To All...

Only God in Christ can change the Ethiopian's skin, or the leopard's spots, or the sinner's heart, as He will.

Only God in Christ can save us from the wrath of God against sin.

"He that hath the Son hath everlasting life; but he that hath not the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abideth upon him." Jn 3:36

Those who truly believe these things have been born of God; those who don't believe them are not born of God, no matter how religious they may be. Someday, some of them may be, but not now.

In the Name of Him Whom we love only because He first loved us,

connieman

[ May 24, 2002, 12:44 AM: Message edited by: connieman ]

 

[Primitive Baptist]

All of the children of God are not Calvinists nor will they ever be until they get to Glory. Paul dealt with a similar problem in his letter to the Galatians. "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ" (Gal. 1:6, 7). Arminianism is certainly not the faith of the church our Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, a perverted Gospel. Notice Paul addresses the Galatian church as brethren (1:1) and called (1:6). Certainly they were saved but had been deceived by false teachers as so many of the people of God often are.

My contention with this position being espoused by the primitives is the belief that one can be saved without a propositional communication of the gospel message. Scripture makes it clear that such cannot happen. People are saved by the word.

The Gospel is not a proposition, but a proclamation (Is. 61:1). The Gospel is the good news of what Jesus Christ has already accomplished for His people, not what He will do if they meet all sorts of conditions. The Gospel most certainly does save, but not eternally. "Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain" (I Cor. 15:1, 2). The Gospel saves if (condition) it is kept in memory. Again, the Galatian church had been deceived into believing "another" Gospel, but they were eternally saved as has already been proven. The root of this problem is one reads the word "saved" and assumes it is referring to eternal salvation. With this method of interpretation, baptism must also be a condition for eternal salvation. "The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us (not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God,) by the resurrection of Jesus Christ" (I Pet. 3:21). There is a salvation in baptism because it gives a clear conscience toward God. The Gospel does save the hearer temporally, but not eternally. Jesus never said His elect would hear the voice of a preacher, but He did say that they would hear His voice (John 5:25). The proclamation of the Gospel saves the people of God from ignorance, confusion, and deception but not the eternal wrath of Almighty God in the lake of fire. This salvation was accomplished at Calvary. "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Heb. 9:12). "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Rom. 5:10).

And there be some on this board that do not understand if it is not necessary for eternal salvation, then why preach? The church is to preach the everlasting Gospel of Jesus Christ where the Spirit directs them. It is comfort to the regenerated child of God and is only received by such (I Cor. 2:14). When God commissioned Paul to preach at Corinth, He said to Paul, "For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city" (Acts 18:10). The people in that city were the people of God and would have been had Paul never preached to them. In the parable of the sower, Jesus illustrates how the seed (gospel) only gains entry into fertile soil (a heart of flesh). Consult any farmer, and they will tell you that seed will not change unfertile soil to fertile soil in any way! The heart has to already be prepared (Matt. 13)

[ May 24, 2002, 01:29 AM: Message edited by: Primitive Baptist ]